(EVANS, ARISE). Light for the Jews: Or, The Means to Convert them, in Answer to a Book of theirs, called The Hope of Israel, Written and Printed by Manasseth Ben-Israel, Chief Agent for the Jews here, 1650.

An Anti-Semite Responds to Menasseh ben Israel. This curious little book is an example of the reactionary literature produced by English anti-Semites in order to thwart the lobbying efforts of Dutch Rabbi Menasseh ben Israel. Menasseh fervently hoped that Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell would grant the readmission of the Jews to England. Cecil Roth sums up relations between Menasseh and the author of our pamphlet: "A scatter-brained gentleman named Arise (or Rhys) Evans, who had been imprisoned a few years before on the charge of having declared himself to be Jesus, called upon him [Menasseh] and endeavored to demonstrate through an interpreter that the Messiah to whom the Jews looked forward, and who was to put an end to their bondage, was none other than the exiled Charles Stuart - a somewhat extraordinary ascription for the Merry Monarch" (Roth, A Life of Menasseh Ben Israel: Rabbi, Printer, and Diplomat [1945], p. 254). According to the colophon, "This Book was written Eight years ago, and…never published till Now, 1664."